With the evolution of wireless networks driven by a significant increase in wireless mobile data, plus the proliferation of wireless transceivers, spectrum interference and the volume of data communicated in a network are rapidly becoming limiting factors in determining cell size, coverage, and efficiency.
Customers who purchase wired or wireless data plans typically demand service-level agreements (“SLA”). These SLAs typically define gigabytes/month, service availability, and service quality.
It is generally known that Wi-Fi networks are “best effort” because these systems operate in unlicensed spectrum and are therefore not operationally guaranteed. However, service level targets (“SLT”) can still be defined and published to customers so that they understand the targeted service level expected of their data plan. An example SLT is for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video traffic. The service-level target is to be able to deliver VoIP (e.g., Skype™) and video traffic (e.g., video streaming such as “on demand” services or video calls, such as “FaceTime™”). These services require a level of capacity and availability of the channel to be able to offer a specified number of sessions at a given throughput and packet loss.
The present application employs a novel technique to characterize the coverage and capacity of a Wi-Fi network so as to be able to establish reasonable confidence in the ability to achieve service level targets as defined for specific applications, which may be accomplished using NULL-data packets (“NDP” or “NULL-packets”).